Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress independence of reason, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
